May 30, 2008 // Franchising.com // Leading greeting card publisher and franchisor, Card Connection, has announced that four of its UK franchisees have been rewarded with a £500 cash lump sum because friends or family have bought a Card Connection franchise territory during the past year, based on their recommendation.
"We have made significant progress in the past few years to implement innovative ideas to help our franchisees further improve the profitability of their businesses," confirms Robina Every, managing director of Card Connection. "As a result, franchisees are keen to recommend our award winning business model to people they know, and our referral scheme has never been so popular.
"The referrals are country wide," continues Every. "However, probably the most notable is David Roseweir who took over the Stirling / Perth territory following a recommendation from franchisee Angela Doherty who runs the Motherwell / Dumfries region. David has already been able to make a significant impact on the development of his area within a relatively short space of time."
Card Connection itself is one of the UK's largest card publishers and is the market leader in the franchised distribution of greeting cards. Using a proven system, franchisees place greeting card ranges in retail outlets on a 'consignment' basis. The merchandising service provided to retailers by local franchisees is second to none and has established the company's excellent reputation especially within the convenience sector. Card Connection supplies numerous national accounts, which include the likes of Total, Costcutter, Budgens, Londis, Spar and Shell.
Innovations that Card Connection has introduced recently to help franchisees increase the profitability include: Gift Connection – a range of quality gifts which allows franchisees earn income in addition to the sales of the popular, quality greeting card ranges. Card Connection is also currently in the process of rolling out new electronic hand-held terminals to all its franchisees. The terminals allow stock levels to be calculated automatically on-sight, enabling some franchisees to make gains of up to 20% in their productivity, through the reduction of paper based administration.
Because the franchise networks in the UK and Ireland are complete, the available opportunities now consist of acquiring an already-established territory from an existing franchisee. These vary in price according to their level of development, but start at £20,000 (+ stock) with earnings potential in excess of £50,000 per annum.
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